Phoning it in

Dispatches from the back of the venue

Genre: Ambient

  • Seefeel In Dub

    Seefeel In Dub

    We reported from Seefeel’s spellbinding in peformance in Manchester last year (read all about it here) and since then there has been more activity, not least a stunning reissue of their early EPs collected along with the legendary Aphex Twin remixes as ‘Pure Impure’ which means their incredible back catalogue is pretty much all ‘back in print’. To celebrate, Mark Clifford has created a solo, audio-visual show for a short tour effectively doing Seefeel ‘In Dub’.

    Support tonght comes from Crimewave who we saw recently in Manchester and his heavy monster beats land very well once again, channeling The Young Gods, Meat Beat Manifesto and imperial phase Hip Hop coupled with vocals and layers of guitar fx.

    There’s a modest sized crowd in by the time Mark takes to the stage. It’s Sunday, its the end of Half Term and to be fair a Laptop/Mixer performance isn’t much of a spectator sport. What made Seefeel truly special is they were (are) a group that brilliantly blurred the line between purely electronic/sampled music and band performances to the point where it’s hard to pinpoint who is playing what. Without Sarah on vocals, Mark on guitar, live bass and drums it does just become – someone with a Latop and some knobs to twiddle – albeit that someone is responsible for some my favourite and most treasured music. But I’m here for it and the faithful are here for it too.

    The visuals are curiously minimal too but based on a simple but clever idea – A camera pointing at the stage and repeating the absence of anything other than the edge of the Mixer table – using infinity and video feedback chaos to create patterns and interference – I can’t help thinking it would have worked better if Mark had stood centre stage and give the camera more information to deal with but it’s strangely effective and fits the musical theme. It’s one that is crying out for a more immersive venue space where you could really go to town on it.

    There’s no faulting the majestic music, as Clifford pulls up recognisable themes from the early EPs and the ‘Quique’ LP, goes rogue with the FX and gets into to remixing on the fly – deconstructing the tracks as he goes, pulling focus on sounds that are familiar from the originals – snatches of vocal or eerie washes of guitar and pushing the beats and basslines into the heavy dub zone. It’s great to hear and makes me think a whole LP of Dub remixes would be very welcome or even just some soundboard recordings of these shows – just dropping that hint right there.

    So as wonderful as the music was – it didn’t quite work as a performance tonight. In a smaller venue or maybe presented like one of those ‘Boiler Room’ sets where people get in amongst it and watch the artist at close quarters it would have been much more engaging – in a underoccupied gig venue on a sobering Sunday night in Leeds, not so much.

  • Dummy & Three Quarter Skies

    Dummy & Three Quarter Skies

    Back in my favourite basement which, once again has been transformed into a sonic cathedral by some adventurous artists

    First up, a nice surprise. Simon Scott, who by day is the drummer with Slowdive – now well into their remarkably successful 2nd act – but is also well established as an artist in his own right with a dizzying array of musical projects and soundtracks to his name. Tonight he performs as Three Quarter Skies who have a new record ‘Fade In’ to play to us. Shoegazers will be in familiar sonic territory however this is a much looser and more lo-fi proposition than Slowdive – Simon fronts a 3 piece band singing and playing guitar and electronics and he’s joined by a simpatico guitarist and drummer who whip up great billowing clouds of noise that reminds of those more exploratory groups in this field like The Telescopes, Spacemen 3 and also the fragile songwriting of the mythical Flying Saucer Attack. It’s loud, enveloping and rather marvellous.

    This is my 2nd time seeing Dummy, who headlined a ‘Mood Swings’ band night in this very venue a couple of years ago and I was very much taken with them and the many musical boxes they ticked with me. They’re back over from LA and getting toward the end of a pretty extensive few weeks schlepping around Europe and beyond. It’s fair to say they look completely knackered – but this doesn’t stop them putting in a brilliantly powerful and idiosyncratic performance – and like the Portishead album they borrowed their band name off – it’s hard to predict the musical ebb and flow they take us on.

    Everyone has keyboards as well as guitars and drums so one minute we get Brian Eno style, ambient interludes and the next minute we’re into My Bloody Valentine guitar bending freakouts, the electro-glide of Curve or the metronomic locked grooves of early Stereolab, Broadcast or Yo La Tengo. On songs like ‘Unshaped Road’ they show that 90s Trip Hop influence as a sweet pop vocal rides over a killer bass riff that could be from Massive Attack. That’s not to say they are derivative or slavishly copying those artists – they have a unique style of their own and they knit a lot of different moods and sounds together and somehow make it all coherent – their track Blue Dada is a good example – it starts very much in that early 90s Too Pure era Stereolab Groop Groove but takes on a strange little life of it’s own and its that sense of surprise in the choice of melody and dynamics that sets Dummy apart.

     

    https://youtu.be/_w8942xcHY4?si=ZQbvcSmusYLmyS9T

    Tonight suggests that Dummy, as good as their records are, are a band that really need to be seen live to really get what they’re about – so if this hard working band come to your town don’t pass up the chance to see them bring the noise.

     

  • Seefeel

    Seefeel

    I first saw Seefeel 30 odd years ago supporting Cocteau Twins and was immediately grabbed by the fact that while they presented as a traditional 4 piece guitar band, they didn’t sound like a ‘beat combo’ at all – swirling, looped sounds, distant vocals mangled so the line between voice and synthesised sound becomes blurred, and great thwacking bass (memorably played by Darren Seymour – twirling it around his head like it was a majorettes baton). Truly in a class of their own and I’ve been an avid fan ever since.

    The band have returned, sporadically over the years, and got some critical reappraisal recently with the material they recorded for Warp records being reissued as an excellent box set complete with a wodge of unreleased gems that – unlike a lot of ‘extra tracks’ are well worth your attention. Seemingly out of nowhere, a new mini-LP ‘dropped’ earlier this year on Warp. ‘Everything Squared’ is delicious and bridges the gap between the billowing clouds of looped guitar and sub-bass of their earlier stuff and the spartan, icy plains of their mid-period work.

    A gig by these is a rare thing indeed and with no danger of a moshpit I get down the front for the full arsequake bass experience and perhaps to try and figure out how Seefeel works. They’re down to a 3 piece tonight with core members Sarah Peacock and Mark Clifford joined by a bass player (I didn’t catch his name and this reviewer thought it was a returning Seymour?) and while the bass stays firmly below head height you could lie down and take a nap on the colossal subsonic waves coming off the stage.

    The set opens with ‘Climatic Phase’ from their debut ‘Quique’ and it is one of those goose-bump moments as they gradually build the track up from looping samples, fragments of vocal and guitar building toward the dub bass and everything locks in. They still sound like nobody else. The set mixes those early Too Pure tracks with a selection from the new record and you can’t see the join. It’s a privilege to watch them at work, up close – and it’s not as if we’re seeing behind the curtain as I’m none the wiser how they make a few FX pedals, some guitars, a laptop and some singing sound so other-worldly.

    It’s a relatively short set but warmly received by a very attentive audience of old heads and few curious pop-crazed youngsters who hopefully leave inspired like I was 30 years hence. Leave ’em wanting more I guess, and we do. Their is talk of a new full length LP and apparently Mark Clifford only puts out a fraction of the material he records so hopefully I will have my atoms rearranged by Seefeel again before too long. Majestic.

     

  • Immersion (Colin Newman & Malka Spigel)

    Immersion (Colin Newman & Malka Spigel)

    While sensible people are staying home with the immersion on, I’m braving the sub-zero ice and snow ‘cos Immersion are on.

    Last time I saw Colin Newman on a stage he was fronting his day-job band, Wire, at Band on the Wall just before Covid curtailed their touring plans in 2020. With the band now seemingly on hiatus (check out Matthew Simm’s Memorials and Graham Lewis’ latest – both mighty fine ) Colin and his partner, musician and artist Malka Spigel have been keeping very busy with a weekly radio show and reviving Immersion which started 30(!) years ago as a way of exploring the duo’s fascination for club music and electronica. I saw them play a mesmerising set at Wire’s ‘retrospective’ comeback at the Royal Festival Hall in 2000 (we only have this excerpt:)

    – and tonight’s set up is very similar – a bank of electronics and the duo silhouetted against a video projection except tonight, they are facing the audience. There are songs too, with vocals from both and Colin occasionally reaches for a guitar and Malka is bashing away at a Korg synthesiser with considerable gusto – so although the austerity budget didn’t stretch to bringing a live drummer over for the tour, it makes this feel like a gig you can engage in rather watching some laptop jamming.

    There are familiar, signature drones which remind you of their initial incarnation and the downright essential ambient classic ‘Low Impact’ but Immersion has morphed into something more open-ended and actually very danceable – there are beats galore and trouser-flapping bass as well as some very enjoyable detours into kosmiche musik and Dreampop (if we need to get into genres).

    There is an airy, almost new-age positivity about Immersion which might sound a bit flowery in less talented hands but with two of the coolest musicians on the planet in charge who know of what they sing/speak, it works and the audience response reflects this right back – all smiles. The audience is a mix of people of a certain age but also curious younger folk who are enjoying the hefty basslines and beats these two, ridiculously youthful 70 year olds are firing off and we’re all moving with them. Immersion are bringing their sound and art to your town – go and see them!